Becky (an approximation of the hand-cut fabric font that Becky used in her final project for our Ox-Bow class), 2013

orange neon

64 x 12 x 2.25”

56 x 12 x 2.25”

Inside-Outside Table, 2013

custom-made surface in two parts for public and private
workshops

birch plywood,metal

8’ x 8’ x 29”

Score for Selfempathy: Design a patterned fabric to be
digitally printed using photos you take of yourself. Create a garment for
someone whose face you are intimate with. That person does the same, creating a
garment for you. The garment should be wearable. It doesn’t have to be
comfortable. If worn publicly it should be to an event with intense networking.
If you’re out together, get photographed as a pair, 2013

Leslie (exact replication of the sign for the Dan Graham gallery, which we renamed Leslie Dick for the duration of our exhibition there in 2009), 2012Pink neon16" x 72"

Running late in the car we saw a number plate for “Anna”Met Sue, had a Constant Comment tea, walked around, talked around the PDA performanceUnion station decorative tiles, sushi, giant pretzels with jalapenos on the train to PomonaJust in time for Liz’s show. The pigment festival, students washing off colors in the fountain.Browsing, drowsing, a beautiful abstract tapestry only $30. Dresses too smallLaughing on the way home, photo booth pics legs up highConfusion in the car park, attendant attention, we are taking our tights off…., 2012tights and sweat46" x 40" framed

CamLab sensualized the MOCA Auditorium for the Shares and Stakeholders: The Feminist Art Project day of panels at the 100th College Art Association Annual Conference. The set-dressed podium, table, lamps and monitors affirmed the joining of the mind and body, heart and loins.

In honor of X-TRA Magazine’s 15th Anniversary, CamLab chose 15 scores from its public displays of affection archives to perform with the audience. Eventually all the scores were enacted, with the session culminating in a climactic group effort.

Working from CamLab’s archive of PDA performance scores, visitors to the Hammer Museum were invited to create a one-on-one performance with the artist duo. Participants selected a score to act out, make out, press the flesh as friends on the street, father and son at the park, lovers at a bar. Simple to enact, the event provided the opportunity for proximity with a stranger, no strings attached.

Visitors to the Grand Avenue plaza occupied the 60’ diameter relational garment and ‘converted currency’ while conversing on topics including the economy. At the same time, CamLab provided pennies to those using the Instrument of Intentions, a yonic and sonic wishing well. Throughout the evening CamLab polled those present to determine what the group would wish on next. As a gesture of transparency, CamLab donated $1000 of its Engagement Party budget to the group W.A.G.E., Working Artists and the Greater Economy, to help fund their efforts to create better economic conditions for artists working with institutions.

CamLab programmed five different workshops to take place in the customized yurts installed as an encampment outside the Geffen Contemporary. Workshop activities included basic self defense, introduction to horizontalism, Experimental Freedom Techniques and embodied partner work. Each group wore its own CamLab designed garment while the workshop was in session.

The
Grand Avenue building’s lobby was transformed into a waiting lounge,
where visitors browsed the ‘Empathy & Misunderstanding’ binders to
find a text to present at custom-made podiums installed on the Visitors
Services desk. Small groups of friends were brought into the Rust and
Bludoir (Rothko) Room where they donned garments made from CamLab
designed fabric. While occupying the bedroom set, the groups played in
front of the computer camera mirroring program, becoming absorbed
visually and physically. These images were live streamed into the
waiting area.

At the entrance to City Hall, CamLab stood at both ends of the fabric expanse, inviting passers-by to cut their own head holes and occupy it with us. While we stood together, many different kinds of conversations materialized, from the private and personal to impromptu televised interviews.

CamLab related to and through a handmade soft sculpture while sequestered in a private bedroom, with the live feed playing to viewers on a monitor in a den-like 'hang-out' room nearby. The durational broadcast cultivated psychological space generated from pleasurable embodiment, indulgent role-play, and intimate speech.Press.

Gathered in a Clearing, a group show curated by CamLab at LEVEL in Brisbane, Australia, February 5-25, 2011.With work by:Andrea BowersLeslie DickAlexis DisselkoenCandice LinElana MannWendy MasonGina OsterlohLouisa Van Leer

Visitors were invited to throw coins into the glasses, vases, and bowls in an effort to make our wishes come true. The concentric folds of the quilted rug echoed the circular architecture of the "The Onion" (Church of the Sepulveda Unitarian Universalist Society, North Hills).Press.

In this performance, CamLab invites one person at a time to put her/his head through the third hole in the costume in order to have her/his hair "combed" by the hands of CamLab. Each person who participates signs the costume afterwards. The lightweight fabric garment is extremely mobile, allowing CamLab to stage the performance virtually anywhere. It was initially developed for the Anarchist Bookfair at the Southern California Library for Social Research in Los Angeles, and will continue to be performed until there is no available signing space left on the costume.

In the tradition of John and Yoko, CamLab entered a bag and took questions from the audience. Topics ranged from existential to everyday. The bag facilitated CamLab's enactment of a variety of voices.Press.

Dear Poi, At the end of our summer residency in Chicago, we planned to have our long hair fully braided together so we would live co-joined for the last 24 hours we were with each other, after which we’d cut off Anna’s hair so Jemima would wear it back to Australia. As we researched in preparation, we came across fetish websites devoted to amateur photography of women with extremely long hair. Often the visceral prominence of the hair in the images began to form another body. One photo that made us laugh was of a guy masturbating using a woman’s long hair. In the end we didn’t end up making our ‘hair work’ because it was too psychological for us to handle at that point in time. However, the project is still very much on our minds. Love, CamLab, 2010
digital photograph

Visitors were invited to step up to the sculpture to read aloud from the research binder provided. The documents explored “psychoness” and were gathered from various sources including CamLab’s personal archive.

During the course of the exhibition opening for Emodes of Research, CamLab performed six 6-minute demonstrations of relational objects made from found materials. The performances took place in the “Night Alcove,” while the objects themselves were displayed in the gallery’s other (unmodified) recess.

A performance for video that took place on a temporary stage in the woods. The two performers began by tying their hair together, then pulled apart until separated. The remainder of the performance consisted of the pair taking turns whipping each other with their hair.

Constructed out of secondhand clothing sewn together into a piece of provisional architecture for visitors to inhabit throughout the evening. This conglomeration of clothing linked participants’ bodies and forged intimacy. The asymmetrical web of everyday attire wove its way through the architecture of the backyard. While the sculpture had a domestic logic visible even without inhabitants, the work was completed through embodiment and the social interactions that resulted from these material parameters.

Using a 45’ expanse of fabric that extends between CamLab's bodies, this live performance made the gallery’s presence in its surrounding neighborhood visible. While inhabiting the ephemeral architecture, CamLab’s “duologue” functioned as a meta-narrative that theorized the performance as it unfolded. Consisting of texts both found and composed, topics included architectural theory, feminism in popular culture, and walking under umbrellas in the rain. The hermetic back-and-forth across the length of flapping (in the wind) fabric continually took its cues from the physical realities of the situation.

Current:

In Spring of 2014 CamLab was the Art Department's Visiting Artist at California State University Los Angeles. We worked with thirteen students as they prepared for an exhibition at Luckman Gallery, entitled eachother.

Order MOCA's book about the Engagement Party series here. Essays by Grant Kester, Aandrea Stang, and Elyse Mallouk, who wrote the CamLab chapter.